It's About Love
by Muggle Jane
Summary: A recollection of shared memories. Written for Teddy for the GGE2014


**A/N: I own nothing but the plot. Something a little different, written for Teddy for GGE2014!**

You thought no one saw, you thought no one noticed. I could see it in your eyes as you carried me out of that horrible chamber of death. I saw the pain, more than the pain of losing a family member. You didn't say anything to anyone, not even Harry. We went back to that house, the house he'd grown up in. Most went off to St. Mungo's to be treated, or to fret over those who needed to be treated, but not you. And not me.

I watched you with silent eyes as you went into the kitchen, after everyone else had left, and all the noise had died down. I watched you take his favorite bottle of drink and set it on the table in front of you, together with a single glass.

You filled the glass and drained it in one go, then filled it and drained it again. You filled it a third time, and this time set it carefully on the table, staring into it as though it held a great many unspoken secrets.

You looked up as I walked into the kitchen, quite surprised to see me there. "I thought everyone had gone," you told me, something close to an accusation in your voice. I was supposed to have gone, your voice told me.

"Very nearly- after all, it's only me here." I sat down across the table from you, not looking at you and not saying anything else. I wanted you to know that you weren't alone, but that I wasn't going to intrude in your grief. I even pulled out a book and opened it so that you wouldn't feel that you were waiting for me to say something.

At length, you picked up the glass and drank again, but this time you only sipped it instead of bolting it. I could feel you watching me, but I didn't look up to your own, only noticing the motions of your hands from the periphery of my vision.

It was something of a surprise to me when you slid the glass across the table, settling it just in front of me. I looked up at you and you gave me a very bitter smile. "You might as well drink," you told me. "Save me from being drunk alone."

I drank, though not nearly as quickly as you did. Someone had to remain in control of their wits, and you were in no shape for it.

"I loved him," you said finally, about a third of the way into your fourth glass.

"I know," I remarked quietly.

"I _loved_ him," you repeated fiercely, as though, despite my assertions, I hadn't quite understood the first time around.

"I know."

You focused on me, your eyes narrowing in an effort to see me clearly. "How? How do you know? No one knew."

"The way your eyes look, as though someone has taken the life right out of you. Even losing family doesn't leave a mark quite like that."

You stared at me for some time as though you were trying to make sense of my words, and at last you nodded and the look in your eyes softened. "I couldn't help it. I didn't want to, but he made me love him anyway." Defiance and fondness both, the defiance for me and the fondness for your love.

"Tell me about him."

You looked at me for another long moment, and I could see the emotions playing out in your eyes. Disbelief, then worry, then, finally, begrudging acceptance.

"I loved him just as soon as I met him. How could I not? He was tall, beautiful, confident. He was everything I wasn't. I told myself then that I just aspired to be like him, for how could I love another boy?" You drank, staring at the memories swirling deep in your glass. "How could I not?"

You fell silent for a time, and I turned my eyes back to my book, letting you swim with the memories in your glass. "It hurt, you know," you said finally, the pain in your voice like the wound you were talking about was fresh. "When he said he was going to live with James instead of me. We couldn't have supported him anyway, things were tight enough as it was. Certainly not to the level of comfort he was used to. But it hurt that he didn't even ask."

"Perhaps your saying no would have hurt him more."

You looked shocked at the suggestion, a swift denial on the tip of your tongue. But your drink had eased the passage of your thoughts, and you came to terms with my words quite quickly, mulling them over thoughtfully. "Perhaps."

You looked back down into your drink before you spoke again, as though you couldn't say what you needed to directly to me. "I remember the first time we kissed. He kissed me, of course, I wouldn't dare. School had just started for the year. I'd had a nightmare, I get them sometimes. Nightmares of turning completely, of killing my friends, my family..." You shuddered, drink spilling unheeded over your hand. "He woke me up, told me I just wasn't the type, and he kissed me. I thought I was still dreaming."

I siphoned the liquid from your hand without you noticing. "He came into the Prefect's Bath one night. He... We..." You looked at me, your blurry eyes taking me in, and then the drink you poured me. "Everything was perfect. And then Peter..."

You jumped as the glass in your hand broke, as you squeezed hard enough that it crumpled in your grip, imbedding its slivers into your skin and causing a rain of crimson onto the table beneath. You could only watch, silent, as I mended your skin and sent the shards flying into the nearby bin. "You're underage," you told me, though not nearly as accusatory as you had been when you noticed you weren't alone in the house.

"I am. You should go upstairs for a while," I suggested quietly.

"Can't sleep." You sounded hurt that I would even suggest such a thing.

"Not sleep. Just be where he was. Smell his smell, breathe the air he breathed."

You shook your head violently. "No," you said fiercely. "I can't. They mightn't understand. Harry..."

"I'll send word when they come home. I can keep Harry's attention until you come back down."

Another long, silent stare, as though you were measuring my words. When you pushed yourself to your feet, your chair clattered to the floor, almost disrespectful in how loud it was. You stumbled, unsteady on your feet. I took your arm over my shoulder and you let me help you upstairs. Up we went, up and up until you told me, "Here." I opened the door and helped you over to the bed, where you sat down heavily, and I left you to your memories.

I heard you crying as I tidied up after you. I heard your anguish, your sorrow, your loss. I heard you rail that it should have been you, that it should have been Peter. I heard you rage and prowl, and the sound of the pitcher as it shattered against the wall.

And then, at last, I heard your silence. And when I went back upstairs, I saw you with your head on his pillow, with one of his robes pulled over you like a blanket. And I left you the picture I'd painted of the two of you on the pillow beside you. You in your Gryffindor-red bed, with a dark-haired boy beside you, his arm around you, his lips against yours.

You never spoke of that night, you never indicated that you remembered what you shared with me. And yet, when you died, I noticed something in your hand. You were lying next to your wife, even in death you seemed to turn towards her. Your opposite hand was closed tightly over something. I took a quick look around and then opened your fingers. I saw the painting I'd made in the dark hours of the night to keep myself awake as I watched for the others to come home.

It hangs on my wall now, among paintings I've made of my friends. My children ask me who you are, who are the boys in the painting. And I tell them that it's love, that the painting is about love.


End file.
